Celtics hope to avoid Bruins' fate, reach finals

Friday

BOSTON — It's a good thing for the Boston Celtics that the NBA rescinded center Kendrick Perkins' technical foul and nixed his suspension.

BOSTON — It's a good thing for the Boston Celtics that the NBA rescinded center Kendrick Perkins' technical foul and nixed his suspension.

He might be the only big man they have left.

Perkins was ejected from Boston's 113-92 loss to Orlando in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night after picking up two technicals in the first half. The league rescinded one on Thursday, clearing Perkins to play in Game 6 when Boston tries for the third time to eliminate the Magic and advance to the NBA finals.

"It's another closeout game on their home court," Magic forward Rashard Lewis said. "I think the game on Friday will most definitely be the hardest game of the playoffs that we've ever faced. They're a veteran team. They'll come out with a lot of energy and a lot of heart, and I'm sure they're not going to want to come back to Orlando."

And, even with Perkins, the Celtics will be short-handed.

Backup Glen "Big Baby" Davis was diagnosed with a concussion and is likely to miss Friday night's game after blacking out on the court from an inadvertent elbow to the face in Game 5. Rasheed Wallace tweaked his back in the game, and his availability for Game 6 was not immediately known.

"We're not a team that's going to look and say, 'Woe is me,'" said Celtics swingman Paul Pierce. "Our goal is to win one more game and end the series regardless of who we put out there. That just means guys have got to come together. One guys down, or two guys go down, it's got to come from everybody."

The Celtics need a victory tonight to avoid a trip back to Orlando for a seventh game, where a Magic victory would make them the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven playoff series.

"I didn't like being in a 3-0 hole, but it's still doable. I don't think we've had a lack of belief," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said. "We can't go back and get those first three. ... I don't know why we didn't get at it, I don't know why we didn't play with the same type of energy in the first three games. I really do not know."

Only four times in North American pro sports history has a team come back from a 3-0 deficit. But the Magic wouldn't even be the first to do it this month in Boston: The Bruins led the NHL's Eastern Conference semis 3-0 before the Philadelphia Flyers came back to advance — celebrating in the very same TD Garden locker room where the Magic dress.

"I would doubt that players would get affected by what happened in another sport," Van Gundy said. "I would have a hard time believing that. I don't think most of our guys on any of our teams follow hockey very much."

What started as an unprecedented pipe dream — Boston had never even needed a sixth game after going up 3-0 — is now more realistic as the Magic gain confidence and the Celtics lose personnel.

"We made it look easy early on, and now it is becoming a fight. We anticipated this from the giddy-up," Celtics forward Kevin Garnett said. "We are upset, and we do not take losing lightly around here. That is not something we would like to adopt."

Perkins was called for two technicals on Wednesday night — an automatic ejection — and since that gave him seven total in the playoffs he was in line for a mandatory one-game suspension. But the league rescinded the second "T" on Thursday — taking the rare step of announcing it in a news release — clearing him to play.

Also Thursday, the league upgraded a foul called on Pierce to a one-point flagrant foul. If Pierce amasses four flagrant foul points, he would also face an automatic one-game suspension.

Speaking before the league announced its decisions, Van Gundy said he wasn't worried about whether Perkins' technical would be rescinded.

"The league decides what goes on," he said. "They'll tell you who's playing, who's not playing, and you get ready to go."

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